Sheradyn – Drama Essay ~ No sugar (Jack Davis)

The play No Sugar by Jack Davis has various themes and issues covered in it. My understanding of society helps with the meaning of this text, through multiple aspects. These aspects are shown in the text through various themes/issues. These themes portray society and help with my understanding of No Sugar. The themes/issues are as follows; colonialism, economic depression and the patriarchy society. All these topics were a big part of Davis time, and when he wrote the play. This is the reason that we can see these issues portrayed through his play. Racism is a big part of his play and in the era when the play was written as well, and it’s shown not as a separate issue but is portrayed
This is because it’s not just the whites being racists and not giving them much food, but its hard times and there is not much food to go around, especially as the aboriginals are at the ‘end’ of the food chain, and most marginalised, they ended up with less than everyone else.

The last issue I have come across here is the patriarchal society and how by understanding this I can understand the play better. A patriarchal society is one whereby “men are the decision-makers and hold positions of power and prestige, and have the power to define reality and common situations.” Despite the depression, the women carried a great domestic burden, home-making was still considered a women’s role, so even if a women had worked all day scrubbing floors to bring in some money, her unemployed husband would still expect her to cook dinner and keep the house in order. It was very unfair and unjust times, due to the depression and to this society. We can see this in the play, where the only white women we really hear of are the secretary Miss Dunn and Miss Eileen and the matron. None of these ladies hold power; where as the white males mentioned all do hold power. It’s quite obvious in this play that the men are in control and “call all the shots.” We can also see the power the men have over the women, especially the blacks, when Mary tells Joe about what Mr Neal does. “Mary: No! Some of those guddeeahs (white people) real bad. My friend went last Christmas and then she